Beyond the New Horizon

by Christine Conaway

  On a side shelf, Gina spotted a stack of gunny sacks. The kind she used to buy her oats and sweet feed in. “These will work. Put the potatoes in one and carrots…well…you know. Even if they’ve been walked on or are dirty, we’ll take them.”

  They worked in silence until the root vegetables were sacked up and sitting at the top of the stairs. Gina stretched her back muscles which were protesting loudly from being bent over for too long. She massaged her lower back and groaned.

  While it was cold outside, the root cellar had grown too warm while they worked and both had removed their jackets. Standing in one spot, the cold began to seep in. Drying tendrils of loose hair hung, stuck to the sweat on her face. With her forearm, she pushed the strands to one side. Her braid looked like she’d slept on it for days and loose hairs stuck out down the length of it. She flipped it back over her shoulder and threw Ben’s jacket to him.

  “Put this back on. We can’t take a chance of catching a cold.”

  Gina put hers on as well and shivered when the cold material covered her damp shirt.

  “Thanks, I should go see where Sam got off to. I thought he went to find us a pot or something to cook in.”

  “He’ll be back.” Gina sniffed the air, “In fact, let’s hope that’s him who’s started a fire.”

  Outside, they found Sam kneeling in front of a fire. Somehow he had rigged up two limbs with ‘Y’ shapes at the top and laid another limb across them. On the ground beside him sat an old fashioned Dutch oven, complete with a bail and lid. He was just hanging a steel ‘S’ hook on the cross limb. An orange homer bucket sat on his other side and looked like it had water in it.

  “Didn’t mean to be gone so long, but the heat from the fire had made the thing rust. Mary had pot thing sitting by the fireplace. She used it as a decoration for years, flowers, gourds, or poinsettias depending on the season. Never thought it would come in handy, but here it is. Mom said it belonged to my Grandmother. I took it to the creek and used sand to scrub it out and got water while I was there.”

  “Nice!” Gina exclaimed. “I’ll get some of the vegetables going while you two move the trailer back here. While you're at it, see if you can find something to put the unbroken jars of food in.”

  It wasn’t long before Gina had a simple stew bubbling over the fire. With the aid of the lantern she found two jars of canned meat and added them once the vegetables had cooked for a while and set the heavy lid on the pot.

  Ben and Sam moved the barrels they had salvaged, giving Gina space to sort through the broken jars. From somewhere, Sam had produced some plastic totes, and she set the sealed jars in them. As she reached for a jar, she nicked her finger on some broken glass and stuck it in her mouth to clean it.

  The glow from the oil lamp had grown dim, and she knew she would soon run out of light. In the corner, she had spotted a couple of taped up cardboard boxes that didn’t appear to have been trashed as most everything else in the cellar did. One was marked Christmas, and the other had the word garden, both written in black felt pen. Gina didn’t take the time to go through them, but set them aside to go into the trailer. Mary didn’t seem to be the kind of person to save junk, so Gina assumed whatever was in them, would be something useable. She would let Mary determine what she wanted to do with it.

  Carefully, Gina continued to sort through the broken jars. The different combined odors of fruit, vegetables, and the various types of canned meats were starting to get to her. The wanton destruction of so much useable food made her sick to her stomach. She wondered if it had been the same people who had destroyed so much or if others had been through first.

  She sat back on her heels and stared around. She had salvaged as much as she could, but food, dirty, walked-on contaminated food, that no one would get to eat, still covered the floor. “So much waste.”

  Gina didn’t know when she started, but a drop falling onto her hand startled her. She sniffed and wiped her face. Gina looked around at all of the wasted food and broken glass. A sob caught in her throat and she cleared it. Not usually one for tears, Gina counted the times she had cried in the past two weeks. Just that day it had happened twice already. She shook her head, “Stop it,” she told herself. Her Grandmother used to say to her, “No use crying over spilled milk you sure can’t pick it up and put it back in the bucket. You prevent it from spilling in the first place.” Finally, Gina understood what she had been talking about.

  They had to be more careful what they were doing. They needed to take more care with their security and avoid getting sick or injured in any way. There would be no medicines or hospitals or drug stores or any outside aid coming to their rescue. Their survival depended on each of them doing their share.

  “Well, crap!”

  “Are you okay down there? Need some help?”

  Sam came down the steps, “Gina?”

  “I’m fine. I think I’m done here. There’s that stack of empty jars there and this last tote.”

  The light flared and with a soft pop, went out. Gina sat in the absolute dark until her eyes could adjust. She could see Sam standing in the lighter door area.

  “We can finish it up in the morning. Your stew smells good enough to eat.”

  Careful to not trip and fall, Gina made her way to Sam and felt his hand take hold of her arm. While her first thought was to pull away, she let him help her up the stairs.

  “I found these under the kitchen counter and thought they would make good dishes,” Sam said while holding a metal pie pans up for inspection. “Ben washed them as best he could.”

  The meal filled their stomachs, as they emptied the pot, and both guys made a fuss about her cooking abilities. She assured them, they would have eaten anything, no matter how it was cooked or how it had tasted.

  Gina sat holding her empty pan thinking about their salvage, “I bet there is more than just these pans that survived. You already found blankets and clothes, but I bet there is a lot more useable stuff still in there.”

  In the glow from their fire, Gina saw Sam nod, “You’re probably right. The living room area is pretty much gone and most of the kitchen, the hallway is pretty bad, the front bedroom is too,” he seemed to be talking to himself as if he were looking through the interior of the house in his mind.

  Gina was content to let his mind wander, and only nodded when Ben said he was going to walk around.

  What had plagued her the whole time she was sorting the food in the cellar was how they could have avoided their earlier trouble. Between them, they had taken four lives, but as far as she could see, the people had put themselves in a situation where there could not have been a good outcome for anyone involved.

  Granted, Gina was sure it had not ended the way they had probably planned. How do you plan on killing someone else just because you want what they have? They could have hidden until after Gina, Sam, and Ben had left, but they had chosen to confront them, with threats of death and paid the price. Gina thought she and the guys had paid the price also. It may be easier for Sam and Ben to put it behind them because they were men, but her dreams would be haunted by the woman. Sam told her that her bullet may not have killed the guy, but Gina knew better.

  She saw the way his eyes had widened as if he could see the bullet coming for him. The blossom of red below his eye an instant before he fell, told her the whole story. She knew it had been luck, she had hit him at all.

  Sadly, Gina realized she would have done it again, knowing ahead of time what the outcome would be. They had made their intentions clear from the first meeting that they had every intention of killing Sam, Ben, and also her if she hadn’t reacted when she did. Their world had changed into an ask questions later type of world. Gina wondered how long or how often they would have to defend themselves against people like the one's today.

  “Don’t beat yourself up over it. Chances are this won’t be the last time we have to defend ourselves. You have to do what you need to do and then put it behind you. You can’t dwell on it.”

/>   “How do you do that? It’s like you were reading my mind, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with it.”

  Sam laughed softly, “I wasn’t really. Every thought you have is reflected by your expressions. I saw enlightenment and horror, followed by resignation. The one I haven’t seen yet is hope.”

  “I’m not sure hope is the right word. Hoping everything will get better, just isn’t going to happen. I see that after today. I just need to toughen up and forget it as it happens.”

  “Just don’t lose yourself. It happens to soldiers in battle every war. They become immune to the killing and lose themselves. That’s why the suicide rate is so high among the returning veterans.”

  “You don’t have to tell me about that. I used to deal with it every day at the V.A. I probably shouldn’t say this, but that’s how Journey and I found Lucy. She lost more than her leg over there, and for a while, it was touch and go with her. I just hope she has the strength to get through what’s going on now.”

  “She’s stronger than you think. I see the bond the three of you have, and I don’t see weakness in any of you.”

  “You just never looked long or hard enough. We have our weaknesses just like anyone else. Maybe we just hide it better,” Gina said with a yawn.

  “Why don’t you two get some sleep, and I’ll stay up for a while, then wake one of you when I get tired.”

  The fire was little more than coals casting a warm red glow above it. Sam looked up at Ben who had appeared in silence, and grinned, “You’re getting pretty good at that.”

  “Good at what?”

  Ben stood grinning back at Sam, and she must have missed the joke and right then didn’t care. Ben was right, she was as tired as she could ever remember being. She would have liked nothing better to climb into her nice warm comfy bed and sleep the rest of the apocalypse away. They still had a half empty trailer and the pile of blankets. They would have to do.

  Before she could get to her feet, Sam reminded them, “Make sure you have a full load and more bullets within easy reach.”

  “Done!” Ben told him.

  The two men looked at Gina. She shook her head, rolled her eyes at them and sighed, letting her shoulders slump, “Not done…but doing it now,” she confessed, pulling her 357 out of the holster.

  “You’re lucky you can hit anything with that old relic,” Sam said with a shake of his head.

  Ben grinned, because he had said the same thing the first time he saw it.

  Gina looked at her gun from every angle, “You’re kidding right? I love this gun, and it fits my hand and on top of that, Journey and I can use the same ammo.”

  “Well, I guess there’s that.

  Chapter twenty-one……Needless devastation

  As soon as it was light enough to see, they loaded all of the totes and barrels onto the trailer. Sam tossed the keys to the man cave to Ben and told him where to find the keys to the big tractor.

  “While you’re doing that…you do know how to drive it don’t you?”

  “I’ll manage,” Ben said and jogged off.

  “You and I are going to go through the house together. You’ll probably see things with a more critical eye than I would.”

  Gina nodded and followed him to the front side of the log house. From his pocket, Sam pulled another of his blue bandanas, “Put this on. It won’t cut down the stink, but it’ll keep you from breathing in any dust.”

  Gina unfolded it and tied it around her face as Sam had done with his neck scarf. She followed him through the door.

  She had never seen the after effects of a fire and was shocked by the degree of damage until she realized most of it was from physical damage, caused by whoever had started the fire. Gina sucked in her breath, and holding it, she looked around.

  She blew it out, “Oh my God!” They didn’t just try to burn it, but they had destroyed everything. The fire didn’t turn over furniture and rip pictures from the wall, nor empty the contents of cabinets onto the floor. She could see where some kind of accelerant had been splashed up the walls. The wood where it had landed on had burned the most. The carpeting in the family area was gone and the floor deeply charred. Centered in front of the old rock fireplace was a flowered sheet spread out hiding whatever was under it.

  She looked at Sam for an explanation, he shook his head no. “Just don’t look under it.”

  The sadness on his face told her that someone had died in the fire and it accounted for the sweet smell of charred meat. “I won’t.”

  So much had burned up, but in the devastation, she saw little things that hadn’t been touched. She picked up a picture frame, that had a photograph heat sealed to the glass, the edges of the frame were charred, but Gina thought Mary would like to have it anyhow. It was a picture of Sherry and Lucas, taken when they were younger.

  “We need something to put things in,” she held up the photo to show Sam. “We can salvage some of the dishes and I see some silverware that we need.”

  Sam nodded and went down the hallway. He came back with two children sized backpacks and what she thought had to be a stack of pillowcases.

  “What about laundry hampers or baskets or a toy box? Something we can really load up. I don’t know if we can use everything we find, but if we don’t take it today, it probably won’t be here if we ever do come back.”

  While Sam went to look, Gina began sifting through the mess on the kitchen floor, putting it into one of the backpacks. The drawers had been pulled out, the contents spread everywhere, dishes and glassware broken on top. As she came to things that fit the dish category, she placed them away from the mess. Silverware and knives, she stuck in a backpack. She could almost see the pattern of whatever they had used to start the fire spread across the floor. It amazed her that some things burned and others, while covered in soot and grime, remained intact.

  The refrigerator had been knocked over, the contents spread throughout the broken dishes. The underlying stench of rotten food mingled with the acrid odor of smoke. Pots and pans had been deliberately stomped rendering them useless. In the bottom of a cabinet, Gina found a stack of cast iron fry pans and a large pot. They all held a coating of rust, and she wondered if the heat from the fire had caused it.

  Whoever had trashed the house and set the fire couldn’t have been thinking clearly. It was easy to track its journey through the house by the degree of accelerant used. It looked to Gina as if someone had randomly splashed it, moved on and splashed more. The floor in places had deep crevasses in it, the kind you saw in firewood after the campfire went out and other areas seemed to be only scorched. Had the house been made out of anything but the aged logs, it probably would have burned to the ground.

  She didn’t understand what had made the metal roof sag, but she really didn’t care. The house was unlivable without a new roof and reconstruction. But, as Sam had said earlier it sat too close to the highway and eventually, people would be leaving the cities, searching for food.

  Sam came walking from the back room area with a laundry basket, bottom up on his head his arms laden with clothes.

  “This stuff is all good or will be after it’s either washed or aired out. There’s still some of the kid's things that can be used, but whoever did this wanted to make sure no one would sleep in the beds. Mary and John’s room was used for a personal outhouse, and the kid's mattresses were set on fire. They didn’t burn much, but they still aren’t any good.”

  Gina showed him the small stack of pictures she had found and pointed where she had stacked the full pillowcases. “I don’t understand why no one took any of this stuff rather than destroy it. It’s almost like they decided if they couldn’t have it, or didn’t want to be bothered with it, no one else could have it either.”

  “I’m starting to think there were more than just the one group here. Come look at this,” Sam said, and put the basket and clothing down.

  He led Gina to what she assumed had to be Lucas’s room with the boy décor. Someone had cleaned a spot on
the center of the window, smoked glass framed the hillside. This end of the house was elevated, and the view outside looked down a gentle slope to the creek.

  Bare trees and tall brown grass followed the stream and at first Gina didn’t see what Sam had found so interesting until he pointed at the clothing strewn along the bank of the creek.

  “Why would they throw clothes out there? Wouldn’t they think about winter…oh.”

  “At least two groups I would say.”

  Gina felt bile at the back of her throat and swallowed it down. “Oh my God…are those bodies, dead people? Did the ones that we…” she couldn’t finish.

  “Maybe. There’s no telling. But, we need to finish up here and get going. Ben has already hooked the tractor to the stock trailer. I’m going to run the jeep to the hay shed and load as much hay as I can pull on the snowmobile trailer and we’re out of here.”

  Gina nodded, trying to keep her eyes from looking out the window. “Sam, wasn’t this a working cattle ranch?’

  “It is, or I guess it was. We’ve already taken the sale stock to the auction house, and the bred cows are at the other end of the valley in the box canyon. We don’t have many left anymore, 30 cows and the one bull. Just enough to keep the taxes down. John was branching out into the hay business.”

  He didn’t seem to understand the relevance of her question, “Are they still there do you think? Could someone have stolen them?”

  “Not likely unless they brought them out past the house. Besides, Carlos would have…awe jeez…Carlos. We never thought about him. He’s probably wondering where we are. We usually take his groceries to him once a month.”

  “Who’s Carlos?”

  “He was my Grandad’s best friend. They went through the war together, and one day he showed up here looking for work and my father hired him. He’s been here ever since. Hell, I don’t think he’s ever left the property since the day he set foot on it. He smokes roll-your-own cigarettes and rides a horse everywhere. He’s got to be in his late 80’s or maybe his 90’s. He has a little trailer we pull to wherever the cattle are pastured. Right now they’re in the winter pasture, and Carlos is with them. Him and his dogs.”